Quotes by Paul Klee

• One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.
• One eye sees, the other feels.
• The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
• The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
• Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.
• A line is a dot that went for a walk.
• A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.
• Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first.
• A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.
• Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
• In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.
• He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.
• Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.
• When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.
• Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.
• To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.
• The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.
• Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age.